CVE-2021-23053 Denial of service in BIG-IP Advanced WAF and BIG-IP ASM

Medium 5.3 Published 14 Sep 2021 Updated 3 Aug 2024

Attackers can exhaust disk space in the MySQL database during brute force attacks, causing denial of service in BIG-IP WAF/ASM.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: None listed

What is CVE-2021-23053?

CVE-2021-23053 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in F5 Big-Ip Advanced Web Application Firewall, published on 14 Sep 2021. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

On version 15.1.x before 15.1.3, 14.1.x before 14.1.3.1, and 13.1.x before 13.1.3.6, when the brute force protection feature of BIG-IP Advanced WAF or BIG-IP ASM is enabled on a virtual server and the virtual server is under brute force attack, the MySQL database may run out of disk space due to lack of row limit on undisclosed tables in the MYSQL database. Note: Software versions which have reached End of Technical Support (EoTS) are not evaluated.

Weakness: CWE-770, CWE-400

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-23053?

It affects 2 products.

Products include F5 Big-Ip Advanced Web Application Firewall, F5 Big-Ip Application Security Manager.

How do I fix CVE-2021-23053?

No fix has been published for CVE-2021-23053 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2021-23053 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-23053 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All F5 Big-Ip Advanced Web Application Firewall vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as GHSA-6ccx-cmhg-89c5.